Hi Graham - your problem happened to me a week ago. It seems that when I
was deciding how big the Linux partition was going to be I thought the size
recommended was a mite to small. So I went for a much larger size. What
seems to happen is when you get to creating the swap file the software has
to pinch some space from the windows partitions. This has the efffect of
corrupting the disk. Like you tried to sort it out with Partition Magic
with the assistance of their help desk but to no avail. PM would not allow
me to even get into the program to sort it. I fiddled around with Fdisk
etc., but to no avail. In the end, and in desperation, I bought a new HDD
transferred as much as I could from the old, i.e.Windows stuff. Then from
the new HDD used PM on the corrupted HDD. It worked a treat and the disk is
now clean. I shall put Mandrake 7.1 when I can get hold of a copy.
Hope this is of some help.
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 2:04 PM
Subject: [newbie] Hard drive compromised by Mandrake install
>
>
> Hello All
>
> Having tried various flavours of Linux (RH 5.2 - 6.1, SuSE 6.0 - 6.3)
> I thought I'd try Mandrake. Followed my usual practice of clearing
> some space(3.5G) on my 2nd drive using Partition Magic 3.0 and
> running the installation CD. Everything seemed to go fine, quite
> impressed in fact, then, as has happened with all the other distros,
> graphics card gets probed and bye bye install. Never mind, been
> there before, start clean and try again with text installer.
>
> Problem.
>
> PM 3.0 now tells me it doesn't recognise the 2nd drive's signature
> (or words to that effect) so it's not going to play anymore. Win 95,
> astonishingly, seems quite happy with it! It can see it's 1.3G FAT32
> partition and doesn't seem concerned about anything else.
> Just to see if the Mandrake installer could figure out what it had
> done, tried it again only to be told my drive was corrupt and it was
> giving up! (Once again words to that effect - this happened a few
> weeks ago). Fdisk(DOS) and FIPS indicate some problems with
> overlapping partition boundaries or something.
>
> H/W setup:-
> Gateway 2000 P5 200MMX 64M
> Virge/VX 4M
> Ensonic Soundscape VIVO 90
> Fujitsu 6.4G, Maxtor 4.8G
> 2 brand X CDR.
> TV card, modem, scanner etc.
>
> There are obviously a number of possible solutions to the problem
> which, being a byte botherer of too many years experience, I could
> probably work out, but the question is:-
>
> WHY DID IT HAPPEN?
>
> Any clues anyone?
> (Is this a known problem?)
>
> Bye for now
>
> Graham
>
>
> **********************************************************************
> This transmission is confidential and must not be used or disclosed by
> anyone other than the intended recipient. Neither Corus Group Plc nor
> any of its subsidiaries can accept any responsibility for any use or
> misuse of the transmission by anyone.
> **********************************************************************
>
>
>
